speedingcheetah

I noticed the MB was removed from my account today. So only took 3 days since it was delivered. Not bad.

(i originally looked at the wrong tracking info, the one for the incoming return kit...oops. that the Friday before i contacted Sprint. MB was delivered to them Tues. Removed by Fri of same week.)

I was able to get the Sprint chat to work:

Sprint do not charge the customer for Magic Box, the device get receive at the ware house however it may take few more days to get it update in inventory.

Be assured there would be no charge in your account for Magic Box, as soon as the device get update in inventory the number will be remove from your account.

The process is not manual , i wish if i could do it for you right now. However it is automatic feature. The line get remove automatically from account once the device get update in Inventory.

Do not worry, the number get remove very soon.

As there is no charge for the Magic Box so there would be no difference in your account.

Only line number get remove, rest of the things would be same. 

If it is showing delivered that means the device is returned now, i was correct the inventory is not updated yet. It will take 4-5 more days to get it update in inventory.

3 minutes ago, greenbastard said:

You should call Sprint and get it removed. While the MagicBox isn't charged a monthly fee, I believe there are taxes associated with it that are charged to you (or at least that was one of the claims made around the web). 

Maybe someone can verify if this is the case or not. I'd still play it on the safe side and call.

There automated system just keeps hanging up on me.

I try to use the app on phone or login into the Spritn account via website. I keep getting "Connection error try again later." or some whit page with some html code says 404 oject not found.

How long does it take for Sprint to process the return and remove the Magic Box form your account?  

Tracking shows "Trailer Dropped" 3 days at at 9am. So its been delivered to them.

Wow. Sprint sent me 2 large boxes...same as the one the MB came in. One has the RMA paper for the MB...the other, the PCS return kit envelop with the return label. Both boxes had the cardboard shell thing for the MB. It does say to keep the "battery pack" so no worries there. But now i have 2 extra brown boxes and the original MB box....LOL. what a waste.

I was curious to see what was inside the Gen 2/3 (not sure what it is...has the lcd screen, not the epaper)
I haven't seen a full tear-down anywhere...

Just removed the top and front and back cover using a plastic trim pry tool.

see here: https://imgur.com/a/tHbASsb

44 minutes ago, SeanK_ said:

So one is a return label and small bubble wrap package, the other is a box that allows you to put the Magic Box in it. Don't ask me why they didn't just included label with the box when you need it and email the label if have a printer.

I specifically saved the original box and the outer brown shipping box...as the instructions said to.

Why they cant just click the button in the UPS portal to email their customer the return label...is beyond me.

I also asked about do I have to return the small USB battery pack and cable thingy that came with it.

That had a label on it that indicated it was a free item, and to go use it to charge ur devices.....well, i did, and it got lost on a recent trip.

The agent on the chat did not know to what i was referring to.

OK. This is confusing. Sprint sent me 2 order confirmation emails. ANd shipping confirmations.

RMA001 PCS HANDSET RETURN KIT 

RTNMAGIC2 MAGIC BOX RETURN BOX VER 2 

The email I got says for the order number for the Magic Box return kits says content is the PCS Handset Return Kit.
But when i use the Check Order Status page, it lists the MB return.

Just have to see what i get. I have read that many folks have just gotten a small bubble envelope to ship a phone back in.

I got emails form UPS for both packages. One is 1.8lbs, the other 1lb.

So..now that the Sprint/Tmobile merger is now an official thing....if it gets approved....

I wonder what happens to Sprint Magic Box. Will they then be able to work? Be dual band devices?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/29/1...-mobile-merger

51 minutes ago, nexgencpu said:

I live in a six story NYC apartment building built in the early 1900's. The MB is located on the 3rd floor, signal works on half of the 1st floor, the whole 2nd and 3rd floors and 4th, covers most of 5th floor and some parts of the 6th floor. As a bonus also covers the garage behind the building which was pretty important for me as it was where B41 signal was marginal. 

So without question is totally transformed B41 in my building. 

As a side note, it took days and days of tinkering to find the best location. Needless to say, not only am I happy with it, so are my Sprint subscribing neighbors (I know of at least 10 in my building)

With that said, my neighborhood is only running 2xCA and there are a ton of Sprint subs so speeds drop below 5mb during peak times. But off peak now hover 10mb+ all throughout the building. Where as Tmobile is non existent inside here Verizon is decent and ATT works but super slow.

So I am satisfied.

Age of the building doesn't  necessarily matter. Its the building materials that does.  Metal and stucco constitution is well known for being RF signal blockers. In some circumstances, they act as a Faraday Cage. (My grandparent's home was built in 1864...had thin walls and poor insulation. Gets any cell signal fine.)

Anywho...U must not have any towers close by that have a stronger signal than the MB then...is my guess. Like I said,  my phone sees a stronger signal from another tower and switches to it. There is no way to force it to stay on the MB signal (perhaps there is via root, but I am not going to root). Also, i had it setup for about 2 months....and "1" is the only number  "Users" it ever reported. which was me. So now one around me has Sprint i guess.

At least i had some fun giving it a try. It also made a nice "nightlight" and clock for my living room.

1 hour ago, nexgencpu said:

Something is definitely not right I have an MB and it covers 4 floors in my apartment building and I connect solidly, it destroys any wifi I've ever seen. But Sprint is also awesome in NYC so there's that.

My complex is 3 floors and about 400 feet long (so says Google Maps scale). It was built in 1974 and is all concrete, metal, and stucco(so has metal mesh all around the outer walls. I am in a 3rd floor comer unit with the MB set set on the far back north facing wall where it gets full B41 signal and i get very good speeds in my unit..

The locations i would hope the MB would reach are only halfway down the complex(to the South facing East/West), on the first floor. However, when i go down to first floor, unless i am directly below my unit on the second floor, or up to 2 units down the hall from it in either direction, my phone will connect to a B25 tower that reports a stronger overall signal and will get very slow speeds. With the exception of the North side of the complex, it will connect to the B41 tower that the MB is connected to and will get good speeds.

In the end, its a neat "toy" but their rateing of 30,000 feet range is crap. Maybe that is open air point to point measurement. Or its the construction materials of my complex that are severely hurting the range.

1 hour ago, RedSpark said:

Interesting development today: https://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/sprint-confirms-magic-box-deployment-trial-mastec

I think this is a great idea to get more Magic Boxes out there.

well...sure. They gotta have some plan to try and get their network to the level of the other major networks.  I've tested them all in my area, sure, Sprint has its places where is very strong and good speed, but 7 out of 10 times, when i am in a spot where i want to stream video, or just decide to check the data speeds at the location...its terrible. I end up having to move a bit to see if i can get better speed to stream smoothly.  When i tested Tmobile and VZW, every place i tried was great. 

The idea of these micro cell towers they call "Magic Box" is good for business and retail stores, malls etc. Places where others will be in and out and may not take the time to switch to the free wifi that may be also be at the same location. But home use, why wouldn't u just use your own home wifi? (Unless u have very bad ISP with slower than Sprint speeds. Even then u have a tether cap so u can't really use Sprint LTE as your home ISP.)  A buddy of mine asked his boss at Starbucks about getting a M.B for the store....but he was like "why...we have free wifi that is much faster?".

I contacted Sprint via tech support chat to inquire about the MB....not expecting to be offered one, but they did. Had it for a while now. Tested it heavily for the first few weeks, now, it sits unplugged. Why would i use the Sprint LTE at my home when my home has Fiber speeds via wifi. I was hoping it would have the range to cover my entire apartment complex, mainly down in the lobby/mailroom and party room and exercise room, where there is no wifi. But it doesn't even come close to that. My home wifi reaches 2x as far as the MB LTE signal. I tired to ask for the return kit, but had no success the 2 times i called. and the chat is always closed when i have the time to use it.

EDIT: Also in the news, Sprint and Tmobile are in preliminary merger talks.....again.

4 minutes ago, LimpNoodle said:

Enlish wits dat

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

tlhIngan Hop Dunmo' Hol puS English Hol.

(Klingon is far better language than English)

I also was editing my post when u replied.

On 4/3/2018 at 6:17 PM, LimpNoodle said:

Yeah if it does not work out I'd love it at work but they would not let me set it up and some jackass would try to steal if they did I wouldn't worry about others getting one they want these things everywhere to improve their coverage and to prepare them for 5 g rollout whitch they plan using these things to help with that

Ur kinda hard to understand with ur paragraph long one sentence posts. but i think i get what ur saying. (not native English i assume)

Ur at a good signal location already if ur phone is getting good speeds without the MB. The purpose of the MB is for fringe locations with poor data speed to get better speeds..

6 minutes ago, lilotimz said:

Sprint 10x10 B25 can easily get 10-20 mbps and a few regions where 15x15 B25 exist can do even higher.

 

Even 5x5 can do 10-15 up depending on congestion.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Well...i and several others I have chatted with (who live in other states) have never seen anything above 9megs upload.

Where as, all other carriers, get 40-100 upload easy in same locations.

Again, how does one check to see if they are on a 5x5 or 10x10?  I see signal check pro sometimes say like B25 with a little 3 next to it? but its only when i am on B41 do i get any good speeds at all here.

6 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

I think they were saying 57Mbps up to 70 Mbps down. Not literally, 57 Mbps upload speeds. Also in 10x10 markets, Sprint can easily top 9Mbps up.

o. whoops.  now that makes sense.

anyway..how do u tell what the #x# is?  I have signal check pro app and it doest say anything like that. 

i was also told by others on other places that Sprint is hard capped at 10meg upload period. forget the term they said it was. but i guess they are testing faster access in certain locations?

13 hours ago, LimpNoodle said:

Hey peeps I am knew here but have some questions i have a second gen magic box. I have had it for a week. One problem i have is i get no good signal in all my windows and i get two bars if its on my dresser in my room against a wall but if i put it in the window just a foot away it gets a worse signal. to add insult to injury i get great speeds on my phone and when i do connect to mb my phone speeds actually get worse i literally have full bar lte on my hone spped tests show something like 57 up to 70 mbs down so why cany this bloddy magic box work the signal is their

i tested via my phone before getting a MB and discovered something similar in my medium sized apartment unit....all my windows (which face one direction) get worse signal and speeds than one back wall of my living room. So i have the MB on a bookcase against my back wall. And it works fine through the walls and not against a window as they say. Speeds are greatly increased.

However, in your case, it seems that the MB isnt suited for your location. I have to question your speed tests. U sure u were on LTE and not WiFi?  Sprint never has anything more than like 9megs up...anywhere, network wide!  It just how they work. Now if u are getting 70 megs down on LTE with no MB, then ur in a damn good place already and a MB is not needed nor can it obtain those speeds even under the best conditions.

The new Sprint Magic Ball is here:

http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-magic-ball.htm

45 minutes ago, SeanK_ said:

That's a lie. No restocking fee. Magic Box Support is able to get you a return label, they will mail it out.

Well, the 4 different agents i spoke to (after nearly 30 min on hold) keep thinking i was returning a device (phone). And when i gave them the MB serial, they said it was invalid and kept asking for make and model of the device.

Anyway, i can't receive mail at the moment...need label via email so i can print it out. (the way it should be done anyway. why snail mail shipping labels these days. i have never had Amazon, ebay, or NewEgg ever send me a physical return label)

Seems i just don't have any luck trying to get a return label for the MB.  I called both numbers that are listed in the MB screen. They were no help. 

Also, the packing slip that came with the MB says there may be a $45 restocking fee for returned devices.

22 hours ago, schmidtj said:

What is the difference between “Restart” and “Power Off”. 

If you don’t actually remove power “Power Off” eventually results in a “Restart”. 

Thanks,

J

I was curious about that too. The shut down option (the only option i see) results in the a CMD message that is like Shutting down for restart. wait for black screen. then after that message screen, it goes all digitized fade out of white slowly. then if u wait a minute, it reboots it itself. So there is no actual shutdown.

Has anyone measured or had any EMI or RF effects from having the MB in their home?

I have been having frequent headaches and some harder time sleeping the last several weeks.  Thought it was just the on coming of Spring.

But I have had the Mb unplugged the last 2 days and night, no headaches and sleep better.

Maybe I am just over sensitive to such things?

On 3/13/2018 at 10:22 AM, JossMan said:

If you chose to leave I'd suggest you return the Magicbox a month before leaving Sprint, just to make sure they receive the box you do not want to be charged $250 for the Magicbox. 

 

Yea. I'll do that.

I recently tried Republic Wireless on my spare Nexus 5X. they are a Tmobile MVNO. Far better speeds almost everywhere than Sprint. And especially in my home, where I have to have Sprint's Magic Box inorder to get anything more than a few megs download off their LTE. (though i use my wifi at home of course). A few places i frequent, Sprint LTE is far to slow to stream vids. 

Unless my usage drastically changes, and i really need Unlimited plan come end of July...ill moving to R.W. Its $15 base plan and $5 per GB. So $60 a month would be 9GB. I can add data as i need. Cheaper than Google Project Fi (even with their refund feature). 

Also, R.W., unlike Sprint, fully supports WiFi Calling, VOLTE, and Visual Voicemail on Nexus/Pixel devices.

45 minutes ago, JossMan said:

Why are you returning the Magicbox if I may ask?  If you do return it everything that was included needs to be returned to Sprint including the power bank. 

I hope people are not getting discouraged with the Magicbox when seeing slower data speeds, RF conditions do and will change as well as the donor site's load depending on time of day and subscriber growth.  

My Magicbox when I first received it would see download speeds anywhere around 8-12Mbps, as I continued to let it sit in the same spot for a few days speeds increased over 20Mbps with dips below 20Mbps depending on the time of day.   

Sorry...should have prefaced my question better.

I was just asking for the future. My free 1yr plan expires end of this coming July. I plan on porting out of Sprint at that time to a much cheaper Republic Wireless for my service....that is, if i still do not need Unlimited at that time. (in between jobs at the moment). 

I was told if u change carriers, u close your account and have to return the MB. Sprint LTE is poor with out it (max 3megs down 0.5 up), however, Republic Wireless uses tmobile and that natively (no repeater box) i get 60 megs down 40 up easy.

Also wish to port out for a few months, if just only for the ability to come back in as "a new customer" should Sprint still offer the promotion of Free 1yr in the future or something like it. 45 days off Sprint is what I am told is minimum time to be considered a new customer.

The sticker on usb power bank gives me the impression that is mine to keep.  " Here is your FREE USB power bank.....use for MB setup...last line....Use as a portable charge for your devices."

Do i need to send back that small usb power bank thing if i need to return the MB?

Also....speeds are still good for me. Though the super fast 80megs or so I was seeing only lasted a day or 2. Now its back to its normal 40-60.